Tag: flashing

Before I explain the ‘how to’ part, please allow me to explain everything I tried to do first in case some of these key words save someone else the pain:

-I tried everything I could find on the well meaning but horrendous pages of OpenWRT. Specifically this one for this router located here.

-I tried the ‘upload via recovery mode browser’ method. Fail.

-I tried a variety of different browsers including a few versions of Firefox. Fail.

-I tried that ‘curl’ command on that chaotic page in full recovery mode and regular boot mode (make sure you read till the bottom if you are at this step now as you should be a bit happy you found my post)

-I tried hex-editing the file according to all that hex editing crap. It was a cool learning experience but at the end of the day the file that ended up working didn’t have needs of the hexing 🙁

-I tried doing every form of TFTP, ATFTP and some other something or another. During this process, I was ‘nearly’ successful getting it on the router, but it kept snagging at block 7560 and then timing out and then aborting. I tried the ‘option blksize’ option in atftp and tried increasing, reducing, etc, etc, and none of that worked. This was my favourite and most useful link on the subject, though, if that’s worth anything.

-I tried increasing the timeout from 1 to 10 to 30 to 60 to who knows how the heck long. But none of that worked either.

-I tried doing all of the above in regular boot (just plugging it in) and recovery mode boot (with the pen jammed in there) and none of that worked

-I tried smashing my head into the wall and laughing hysterically. Fail.

-I tried drinking a lot of alcohol and doing all of the above again. Still failed!

-Finally, because I’m so sadistic, I tried a bunch of new things…. but one of them worked! And I hope it works for you, too. It was the curl command BUT….

…BUT… a few changes were applied:

I inserted a HUB/SWITCH between the router and computer (i’m not sure if this is needed yet)

7. wait for the reboot. Nothing will seem to happen. You will wonder if you have need of bashing your head on your wall, but just wait for light to go out and on again. Still nothing will happen. I thought I had failed again until one *very* critical step did I.

8. change your static IP of your computer BACK TO DHCP (or to the same network as your new router which will magically change from 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.1.1! Once I did this, restarted the connection, I was finally able to access the openwrt login page!